For decades, Rod Stewart's name has been synonymous with ingesting quarts of cum. The rumor goes that he sucked off (and swallowed) so many sailors in a gay bar in San Diego that he landed in the hospital and needed to have his stomach pumped. What a lightweight.

Despite what he claims, it's become such an accepted part of his bio that the seemingly straight-laced, Talbots-wearing ladies who filled the chairs of Katie Couric's talk show stage giddily screamed, "FACT!!!" when Couric asked him about it during a recent game of Fact of Fiction.

Stewart denied it and can even point to the source: a scorned publicist named Tony Toon. "I'm as heterosexual as the come," explained Stewart, but I smell a popper. Wasn't everyone at least a little bit gay in the ‘70s?

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Stewart is talking about this because he released his memoir this week, Rod: The Autobiography. In it, he goes further into the seamen semen story. Quotes the Daily Beast:

By 1982, Stewart was married to actress Alana Hamilton, ex-wife of actor George Hamilton. They went on vacation in Hawaii, and Toon came along. The hotel was overbooked, so Toon and Alana's son Ashley, who was 7, shared a room. "Toon, of course, couldn't resist pulling some bloke in the bar that evening and taking him back to the room. I fired him in the morning. Toon's revenge was absolutely inspired. He fed the press a story in which, as a consequence of an evening spent orally servicing a gang of sailors in a gay bar in San Diego, I had been required to check into a hospital emergency room to have my stomach pumped...I have never orally pleasured even a solitary sailor, let alone a ship's worth in one evening. And I have never had my stomach pumped, either of naval-issue semen or of any other kind of semen. With minor variations...this story has stayed with me ever since. Say what you like about Tony Toon-and God rest his soul-but he was good at his job."

If his belly wasn't ever full of cum, at least his regard of this legend-defining falsity is full of humor.

For added fun, check out Snopes' page on this rumor. Apparently it has been attributed to several artists prone to wild hair and/or putting dicks in their mouths, including: Elton John, David Bowie, Marc Almond, Mick Jagger, Andy Warhol, Jeff Beck, Jon Bon Jovi, the "lead singer" of New Kids on the Block (Jordan? Joey?), the Bay City Rollers, Alanis Morisseette, Lil' Kim, Foxy Brown, Britney Spears and Fiona Apple. But no Björk?